The 2026 workshop on Generative and Agentic AI for Biology

Welcome to the 2026 workshop on Generative and Agentic AI for Biology! We are at a pivotal moment where AI is not only generating novel molecules and predicting biological structures, but also beginning to reason, plan, and act as autonomous agents in the scientific process. This workshop brings together leading researchers from machine learning, computational biology, and industry to explore both fronts — from the latest generative models for proteins, RNAs, and cells, to the emerging role of AI agents in experimental design and biological discovery. Join us for invited talks, a panel discussion, and conversations that span the full spectrum of AI-driven biology.

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Overview

The 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, awarded for AI-based protein structure prediction and protein design, underscored the transformative impact of machine learning on the life sciences. Generative AI models, including large language models, diffusion models, and foundation models for biological sequences and cells, have demonstrated remarkable success in modeling and designing biomolecules and biological systems. However, a new paradigm is emerging. Beyond generating biological sequences or structures, AI systems are beginning to act as agents: formulating hypotheses, planning experiments, interacting with tools and databases, and iteratively refining scientific strategies. This workshop aims to explore the future of AI for biology at the intersection of these two paradigms. Rather than focusing solely on incremental advances in generative modeling, we seek to engage the community in a deeper discussion about the conceptual and practical foundations of AI-driven biological discovery. Key questions include:

Will agentic AI subsume generative models, or are they complementary components of future scientific systems?
In what biological problems is agentic AI necessary?
What architectures are required for AI systems that reason across molecules, cells, tissues, and organisms?
How should we evaluate AI agents that participate in biological discovery?
What is the role of human scientists in an era of AI-driven hypothesis generation and experimentation?

We aim to discuss these questions through invited talks, poster presentations, and panel discussions on the following topics:

Generative models for biomolecule and therapeutic design.
Agent-based systems for hypothesis generation, experimental planning, and closed-loop wet-lab integration.
Foundation models and world models for multi-scale biology.
Benchmarks and evaluation frameworks for autonomous scientific systems.
Human-AI collaboration paradigms in biological research.
Safety, governance, and ethical considerations of autonomous biological AI systems.

Schedule (UTC+9)

Time	Session	Event	Presenter
8:35 – 8:45	Opening Remarks
8:45 – 9:30	Agents for Bio	Invited Talk	James Zou (Stanford University)
9:30 – 10:00		Invited TalkPutting the Science Back in AI for Science	Samuel Stanton (Anthropic)
10:00 – 10:30		Break
10:30 – 11:00		Invited Talk	Joy Jiao (OpenAI)
11:00 – 11:30		Invited TalkBoltz: Towards Accurate Biomolecular Modeling and Design	Jeremy Wohlwend (Boltz)
11:30 – 12:15	Poster Session 1
12:15 – 13:00	Lunch
13:00 – 13:30	GenAI for Bio	Invited Talk	Martin Steinegger (Seoul National University)
13:30 – 14:00	GenAI for Bio	Invited TalkLinear-time microbial protein-protein interaction prediction with Genomic Language Modeling	Yunha Hwang (MIT)
14:00 – 14:45	Contributed Talks PerturbDiff: Functional Diffusion for Single-Cell Perturbation Modeling Can AI Scientist Agents Learn from Lab-in-the-Loop Feedback? Evidence from Iterative Perturbation Discovery MassSpecGym in the Wild: Uncovering and Correcting Evaluation Pitfalls in AI-Driven Molecule Discovery Measure-to-measure Regression with Transformers GDTR: Layer-wise Settling Depth Reveals Biological Grammar in Genomic Foundation Models
14:45 – 15:30	Poster Session 2
15:30 – 16:00	GenAI for Bio	Invited TalkEngineering cell state using artificial intelligence	Yusuf Roohani (Arc Institute)
16:00 – 17:00	Panel Discussion		Anthony Costa (NVIDIA), Pranam Chatterjee (Penn), Shuangjia Zheng (SJTU)

Important Dates

All deadlines are 11:59 pm UTC -12h ("Anywhere on Earth"). All authors must have an OpenReview profile when submitting. If you do not have one, please create your profile early — profiles without an institutional email can take up to two weeks to be approved.

Submission Deadline: ~~May 1, 2026~~ May 8, 2026
Author Notification: ~~May 21, 2026~~ May 25, 2026
Camera Ready Deadline: ~~June 4, 2026~~ June 26, 2026
Workshop Date: July 10, 2026 (Friday)

The workshop will be held on July 10, 2026 (Friday) at the COEX Convention & Exhibition Center, Hall D2, Seoul, South Korea.

Submission Instructions

The workshop is non-archival. All submissions are managed through OpenReview. Please submit your paper via our OpenReview portal (submissions are now open). Submissions can be either short papers (up to 4 pages) or long papers (up to 9 pages), excluding references and appendices, using our LaTeX template. All submissions must be anonymous for double-blind review. We welcome ongoing work with intermediate results to foster discussion at the workshop.

Accepted papers will be presented as posters during the poster sessions. Selected works will also be highlighted as Spotlight talks.